Groups and Outlook Calendar

[Tas]

Techie Types

I'm looking for some basic resource planning software. Technical Projects so resource planning / allocation is part of it. But also need to be able to do some analysis and reporting around it. In this case Microsoft Project not wanted or anything more than some basic needs. Before I get stuck into the software side of it. I had wanted to exhaust what I could possibly do with Outlook Calendar. I figure I can probably get a shared calander and specific 'resource' set up across members of the team concerned - who can then book their time into the calendar - but thinking this is going to be limited.

Has anyone used Outlook Calendar for more than personal calender or room resource booking? Yep I am googling / chocolating!! There is a lot there on calander but not yet getting the right search words to filter onto useful articles, a lot of very general stuff there. So any suggestions advice most welcome.

Ta

[baloo]

If there is an exchange server in the back end then you can do some funky stuff with resources and meetings and shared calendars and other things.

[Tas]

Yep we have an exchange server. We can share, and we have a resource selection (at the moment it is only room booking). I quite like that shedule assistant as well, shows if people free and similar.

I was thinking being able to email invites and the like might be a tidy way to allocate people times as well as capture in a common resource calendar, and there might be some neat stuff I don't yet know about - I'd like to be able to break down into resource sections in the calendar - but thinking that might be too clever. At the minimum could use the colour code to allocate to individuals in the "categorize". Pretty sure can also then Task Allocation tool as well.

I just would like to see some examples of how the tools in Outlook are really exhausted first in this objective. Any links most appreciated.